How I use FigJam to track my career growth
A designer’s tool to document their progress and learning
I’ve tried note-taking apps and kanban boards to track my career growth but none of them worked. It’s not flexible enough and feels more like a chore to maintain— like starting a diary and forgetting about it after a week of writing.
I need something flexible, fun to maintain, and can provide a snapshot of my progress. An endless canvas that allows me to move freely where I could drop ideas quickly. It would also be pretty neat if I can place them on a timeline and use colors and stickers to label and highlight things. Hmmm. Wait. That sounds like something I can do on FigJam. Woah, epiphany ✨
The framework
I won’t describe each section of the framework as it is self-evident but I want to talk about what this allows me to do:
- The timeline allows me to read and appreciate my story — when and how my journey started and progressed, what I initiated and contributed to, what I struggled with but did anyway, and finally, what I learned in each of those moments.
- The color of notes allows me to know at a glance if I’m doing more of blue (eg. craft), purple (eg. community), or red (mentorship). Sometimes I need to focus more on mentorship so I have to make sure I’m seeing more red notes in the timeline.
- The stickers (⭐️ ) allow me to label significant events that speak to my strengths. I then map them to the UX job level framework so I can reference examples easily. I also use a sticker (❓) to mark areas of improvement.
- Parking lots (Opportunities or Quick notes sections) provide a space for me to drop ideas or drafts. I can then spend time later to write the event or contribution in detail, assign a corresponding color to it, and place it in the timeline.
I’ve been using this for 3 months now and I’m happy to announce that I finally found something that sticks. This made conversations with my lead easier and even made him appreciate our journey as a UX team. It also allowed him to read about my journey prior to joining our current team (I’m on a different team when I started at Shopify). A HUGE WIN ✌️
Give it a try and let me know how it goes. I’m excited to see how all of you tweak it to meet your specific needs.
➡️ Download the tool for free. I provided examples of how I write my notes in the document. Just make sure to delete them after you’re done reading cause it’s cringey 🥴
